


inertia

by perfunit



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Alien Invasion, Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, M/M, Minor Injuries, Mutual Pining, boys hilariously underequipped for the apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-08-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:40:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26008912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perfunit/pseuds/perfunit
Summary: Just Seungkwan, Hansol, Hansol's pet lizard, and the end of times.
Relationships: Boo Seungkwan/Chwe Hansol | Vernon
Comments: 1
Kudos: 56





	inertia

**Author's Note:**

> there is no ~actual plot~ I really just wanted to write scenes from this au with some bits of Yearning real quick to destress rofl (I also posted this in a rush so there are def mistakes in there, sorry!! will edit when I get time) but yeah, I love these two a LOT. hope you enjoy! ^^ (and get well soon seungkwan <3)

Have you ever seen Seoul empty?

It's an odd sight, to put it plainly. Hongdae is nothing but its streets at any time of the day now. Hansol doesn't walk counterflow, for there is no flow of bodies, to begin with. By the Han River, where joggers and picnics used to abound, it was the same. It’s just the sky and the water. The bridge. The buildings. The stillness.

It's a little too late to wonder where everyone's gone. Hansol spies rustling in a tree. 

A little too late, and a little too... pointless to, really.

He catches sight of a glinting extremity, and draws the string of his bow taut with a calm inhale. 

The creature creeps out, its glossy skin an offensive twinkle in the distance, and Hansol lets go.

The arrow whistles through the air, across the road. The figure writhes, then stops moving altogether. Hansol exhales.

"Nice," Seungkwan comments. 

He appears, walking up behind Hansol to lightly pat his back. He used to watch Hansol practice. It was when they were both younger, and Hansol was gearing for a championship instead of the promise of a creature lunging at him and picking at his flesh.

“I found Neo, by the way.” Seungkwan doesn’t sound too pleased when he announces this, but Hansol reckons that’s on purpose. Seungkwan’s warmed up to the rascal, he knows. “He was in my pocket. He likes me, unfortunately.” 

In the palm of Seungkwan’s hand is a lizard, all big-eyed and tail lovingly wrapped around his wrist. Their ugly little baby. Hansol coos at him, and he climbs back to perch on Hansol’s shoulder where he belongs.

“It’s getting cold,” Seungkwan comments, turning on his heel. It’s getting dark. And they know what comes out in the dark. “Let’s get inside.”

Hansol nods and follows Seungkwan’s lead down the road. They bid daylight goodbye for today, as they have yesterday, and will tomorrow.

* * *

If they were to be asked what they were doing before they were forcibly plunged headlong into this mess, Hansol sincerely wouldn’t be able to remember. Seungkwan, however, does. He was walking his dog. Bookeu is still badly missed today.

After a minute of contemplation, Seungkwan takes a tentative little sip from this packaged smoothie he and Hansol had been eyeing off the counter. He wrinkles his nose. “It’s expired.”

“Is it?” Hansol reaches for it to try it. He ends up making a face, too. “You’re right.”

Seungkwan rolls his eyes. “You could just take my word for things, you know.” 

“Well, at least now you’re not the only one who experienced that,” Hansol says, the pile of snacks in his arms getting concerningly tall.

“So selfless you are.”

Hansol hums. He tosses him a can of coffee, which Seungkwan catches with ease. On the store floor, they spend some time sorting their supplies and stuffing them into Hansol’s backpack. Neo was no help, curiously weaseling his way in and out of the many compartments. 

Later, they go for a leisurely stroll down the street and amble to the park. There, they just lie on one of the many vacant patches of green. Their backs are against blades of grass, faces to the light blue sky. Time wasn’t slow. It stops. Most days are like this. Most days are a whole lot of nothing. 

At first, it was harder for Seungkwan than it was for Hansol to adapt to this kind of flow of things because he’d always been more used to a flurry of activity in the day-to-day. Hansol never minded the languor. 

But that was the thing. Seungkwan had only been _used to_ the hectic — it doesn’t mean he _liked_ it. 

What, then, does Seungkwan like? He mindlessly toys with Hansol’s sleeve, reflecting.

Where they’re lying, Hansol goes to show off a trick he taught Neo. The tiny thing jumps twice in place upon his command. When Hansol turns to Seungkwan, his smile is all teeth, the bandaid on his cheek getting crumpled by the size of his grin.

Well, Seungkwan likes this.

* * *

Some days, though rare, are an instantaneous, gruesome blur. 

It was a mess of Seungkwan’s limbs, versus the several that flew to coil around Hansol’s throat. 

They released him, leaving a purplish mark that circled Hansol’s neck in their wake, but only when Seungkwan had come running with his trusty spiked bat and started swinging. Hansol shouldn’t have stayed out at this time. Of course Seungkwan came looking. 

The creature was ink black, towered over even Hansol, and out one of its crevices that appeared to be a gaping mouth came the shrillest, most blood-curdling screeches. These were sounds yet to be heard from any animal on Earth for sure. 

And Seungkwan was _frightened_. Almost paralyzingly so. But he had also been acting purely on this fierce feeling that took root in his gut. With knuckles white. Skin cold. Nerves on fire. 

Grotesque noises of his bat’s sharp edges digging into the creature resound, neon liquid splattering over them both and coating the whole breadth of Seungkwan’s arms. With a final cry, the monster eventually melts into a puddle of goo.

Then, the aftermath. 

Seungkwan’s knees are set on the pavement, and he’s coming to his senses. On the rubble, next to the goo, is Hansol’s bow. 

Or was. It’s been snapped in half. Seungkwan’s eyebrows furrow.

“Your bow.”

It feels like it was the last artifact they had of their old life together, and now it’s gone. Seungkwan solemnly touches where it split into two.

"It's not the end of the world—" 

Seungkwan whips his head to glare at him, the blood on the edge of his mouth smudged by his deepening frown.

“— is what I _would_ say," Hansol continues, "had all this not happened." 

He crouches to Seungkwan's level, softness in his eyes. "The world's ending, Seungkwan," he says. "It feels like a waste to be upset about some metal."

Most things feel like a waste now. Like this sense of dismay that they talk about. 

Or all the other things that they don’t.

Back in their hideout-for-the-time-being, Hansol sits across an antsy Seungkwan, busying himself with the disinfectant. It was usually different. 

It was Seungkwan brushing his bangs away from his brows, slathering sunscreen on his arms because he forgot to, fixing his collar. Now, Hansol is wiping down the gash on Seungkwan’s arm, careful and attentive.

“I’m not gonna go out at night anymore,” Hansol promises. He gingerly wraps clean cloth around Seungkwan’s arm. 

There are things unspoken. (I really am sorry.)

“Good,” Seungkwan huffs. “You need to take better care of yourself.” Says the guy who literally launched himself into an alien attack, and went blind with rage to protect someone else. 

There are things unspoken. (You’re the last thing I have.)

“Mhm, duly noted,” replies Hansol, grinning at him. He places a gentle hand on Seungkwan’s thigh. 

The sun is going down, the light streaming from the windows dimming. Despite everything, Seungkwan’s inclined to give a smile back. A small one, with the corners of his lips trying their best to be stubborn. And Hansol is glad. 

There are things unspoken. (I don’t want any of your smiles to be the last.)

* * *

Seungkwan and Hansol end up staying inside the next day. The morning seemed like sunset, the light outside scarce. They peek out the window, awestruck — for better or for worse — by the sight they behold.

A chill runs up Seungkwan’s spine, goose pimples blooming down his arms. “What the hell are they doing...”

Their view of the sky is obscured by joined tentacles of some sort, weaving amongst each other to form something that resembled wicker. From the looks of it, they’re halfway to covering the whole expanse of the sky. And more of them are leaving the ground to float toward the work-in-progress, hovering and finding where they fit like puzzle pieces.

“Congregating? I dunno,” Hansol answers. To get ready to leave, hopefully. But who knows? “It’s kind of pretty.”

Seungkwan squints up at the sky. He shakes his head. “I don’t see what you see.”

While Hansol is enraptured, Seungkwan uses a finger to draw feather-light ghost patterns like the ones he’d seen in the sky on Hansol’s hand. It’s soothing enough. For both of them. Neo goes up to Seungkwan and lies by his knee, too, and in unprecedented behavior, Seungkwan fondly strokes the lizard.

* * *

It doesn’t take long until the world is enshrouded in complete darkness. 

You would think there was absolutely nothing out there. (And, well, maybe that was as good as true.) 

The little holes between the bodies where light could scatter had sealed shut in a matter of hours, and this was the result: a chilling sort of... nothingness everywhere.

With nothing to tell them the passing of time, they feel it out. They try to guess, based on nothing but their own rhythms, if this day had already bled into the next.

Hansol feels like he hasn’t blinked. Yet it makes no difference.

* * *

Electricity hasn’t been something dependable for some time now, but at least then, they had the daylight. Now, they had to make do with an old lamp. It flickers, and it’s dusty, but its weak light casts their faces aglow still.

“If the sun still rises tomorrow...” Seungkwan suddenly speaks. He shifts so that their shoulders are touching. 

“If, not when,” he stresses. “Then, you know, whatever. I could just spend another five, ten, whatever years not regretting anything yet.”

Seungkwan and Hansol are lying side by side, trying to make out the cracks on the ceiling. Really, they are looking at nothing. No blinding sun. No vast blues. 

“Okay, but if it doesn’t?” Hansol questions.

“Then that only means I have to make the regret just. Out of the question.”

Hansol nods, understanding. “So?”

“So,” Seungkwan turns his head to face Hansol. “I’m telling you to be honest with me.” (You’re in love with me.)

Hansol laughs, the sound stark and refreshing in the silence. “I thought you were leading up to _you_ being honest with me,” he says. 

Seungkwan holds the gaze, serious, but there’s something in his eyes — they’re the way they tend to be when he’s looking at Hansol. Hansol doesn’t miss it. He never does. (You’re in love with me.)

Without a thought, they find each other’s hands in the darkness. Something akin to a siren abruptly rips through the air outside, but the hook of their fingers keeps them grounded. They’re alive. Pulse by pulse, they _know_. (I’m in love with you, too.)

Uncertainties follow each uncertainty, and the world may as well be in flames.

(If the world is gone tomorrow, at least you were in it.)

Seungkwan turns the knob on their lamp before it fizzles out and becomes defunct, in turn making the room pitch black.

Though nothing is sure, and may never be ever again, the two eventually drift off into slumber. They dream of nothing. Nothing but the feel of a hand, and the unceasing sounds of a distant siren.


End file.
